"Wait, it's not an actual tomb, is it?" Macey asked. It seemed like an excellent question, but Zach was silent, still crawling away from the buildings and the guards, and toward the mountain that formed the backdrop of the school.
"What are the tombs, Zach?" I asked again when we reached the base of the first hill and climbed out of the ditch and into the shelter of the trees. The ground was rough and steep.
We walked along a path that was overgrown with weeds and brush - as if the wilderness were trying to reclaim it.
"Guys, you're clear now," Liz said from two miles away, but I'd already sensed it.
The marching boys were gone. No cameras could possibly reach us through the dense canopy of trees.
Only a single ray of moonlight sliced through the limbs. I remember that now - how I could so plainly see the features of Zach's face, the look in his eyes as he started pushing aside the moss-covered rocks that sat on the steep mountainside.
"What are you looking for?"
"There should be an entrance around here somewhere." He kicked at the dead leaves and fallen brush that covered the forest floor. "It'll be hidden - made to blend in. but there should be a switch, or maybe . . ."
"A lever?" I asked, walking three feet to a tree that grew from the steep mountainside at an angle unlike any of the others. I reached for the only limb in the entire forest that didn't have a single new leave. "You mean like this one?"
"Caves?" I heard my own voice echo, even though the word had been barely louder than a whisper. "The tombs are caves?"
"Watch your step," was Zach's answer.
I could still hear my roommates chattering in my ear, but the sound dissolved deeper into static with every step behind the hidden door.
The stone walls around us were close and damp, lit by bare, dim bulbs that hung at regular intervals. I had a feeling that we weren't going underground. It was more like we were going straight through the mountains that were the Blackthorne Institute's first and perhaps best line of defense.
"The Native Americans indigenous to this area used to bury their dead in caves like this,"
Zach offered out of the blue. "That's why they call them the tombs. The army used this whole area for weapons testing and training in World War Two. After the war, they found another use for it."
It was strange hearing Zach offer up anything about his past. I wanted to asked for more, but stayed quiet, remembering summers on the ranch and how the baby calves would creep close sometimes, curious and timid, uncertain whom to trust. I knew if I moved too fast I might scare him away, so I just waited.
"We don't really . . ." He looked at me. "We don't really use them anymore."
"How far do they go?" I asked, mesmerized.
"Far."
"How many branches and offshoots are there?"
"A lot."
"Are you going to tell me why you were so desperate to keep me out of here?" I asked.
He stopped suddenly, and I ran into his chest. It was almost as hard as the stone walls around us.
"You'll see for yourself soon enough."
We walked for what felt like hours, disabling booby traps and dodging surveillance cameras.
"Maybe we should split up," I suggested.
"You stay with me," Zach said, like it wasn't really up for debate The passageway was taller than the ones at the Gallagher Academy. The concrete walls felt more modern. It was a next-generation tunnel, to be sure, but it wasn't new or nice.
Nothing about it was anything but functional, and the dank smell and thick cobwebs told me that it hadn't really functioned in a very long time.
"Watch your step," Zach warned when we reached a sloping portion of the tunnel where water congealed in thick black pools.
"Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls you bring down here."
Zach stopped. When he turned, he didn't even look like the boy I knew. " No one comes down here."
Five feet ahead, the stone passageway widened. The ceilings rose taller. I could hear the steady drip, drip, drip of water seeping through the cracks in the stone above us and falling into puddles on a concrete floor. But there were no soft edges there, no bright lights. Stepping inside, I realized that we have our fair share of secret underground chambers at the Gallagher Academy, but I had never been anyplace like this.
Chains dangled from the tall ceilings along one wall. A collection of dummies with crude red circles painted on their chests lined another. Stainless-steel tables stood in the middle of the room while cobweb-covered trays with syringes and pliers sat waiting, as if someone might walk in at any moment, brush aside the dust, and continued with some terrible experiment.
"We don't use it anymore," Zach said, his voice soft despite the fact that there wasn't a soul who could have overheard us. Shame seeped into his words as he looked at the damp concrete floor. "We really don't use it anymore."
A half dozen other passageways opened into this room, and yet I felt the mountain pressing down on me as if there were no way out.
"Zach . . ." My voice caught in my throat. "What is this place?"
"You really don't know what kind of school this is, do you?"
"It's a spy school," I snapped, blood pounding in my veins.
He shook his head slowly. Even in the dim light I saw his eyes go wide. "Not spies. Not always."
"Then what?"
"Come on, Gallagher Girl - a school in the middle of nowhere for troubled boys with no other place to go? You know what this place is."
I looked at the room around us, thought about the rifle ranges and marching boys, about the hours my roommates and I had spent last spring searching for any clues about Blackthorne and finding nothing but secrets and lies.